I’ve been head of climate and energy at WWF-UK since late November 2016. We talked about the Government’s ‘emissions reduction plan’ in my interview for the job; it was late, even then. It was, at that time, expected before Christmas. Then ‘early in the new year’, then ‘in the first quarter’ – which could have […]

]]>I’ve been head of climate and energy at WWF-UK since late November 2016. We talked about the Government’s ‘emissions reduction plan’ in my interview for the job; it was late, even then. It was, at that time, expected before Christmas. Then ‘early in the new year’, then ‘in the first quarter’ – which could have been the calendar year or the financial year. And then an election campaign intervened – then summer recess, then the party conferences. Finally, on 12th October 2017, we have the UK Government’s Clean Growth Strategy.
Clean Growth Strategy front page

So, what is it, why are we obsessed about it, and is it any good?

What is the Clean Growth Strategy?

Reduction of UK greenhouse gas emissions is regulated by the 2008 Climate Change Act. This requires the UK Government to agree and set carbon budgets to cut emissions by 80% by 2050. Budgets are agreed by Parliament, with the levels and trajectory recommended and reported on to Parliament by the Government’s advisers, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC).

The Act also requires Ministers to make a plan –‘proposals and policies’ for how we’ll meet the budgets. The last time Government did that was in 2011. It was pretty thin on detail, but actually the UK has done a lot to cut emissions – mostly in relation to electricity. As a result, we’re doing well against our carbon budgets. Not only have we met the first two, but we’ve passed the 37% reduction in emissions that we were to have achieved by 2020. In fact, UK emissions are down over 40% since 1990 – a period when the economy has grown by more than two thirds.

However, a whole bunch of policies which have helped do this come to an end soon. Without a new plan, we’d therefore have nothing to set out how we plan to meet the fourth carbon budget (2023-2027) or the fifth (2028-2032) – by which time, we should have cut emission by more than 57%. That’s what we’ve been waiting for – and what became the Clean Growth Strategy.

Why are we obsessed with it?

Because it’s so late. Because it only deals with plans to get to 80% reductions in emissions anyway. Because the Paris Agreement means that we need to get further than that by 2050. Because you should always be suspicious when governments don’t do things they said they’d do! And because we care passionately about tackling climate change.

So, is it any good? Well, this probably depends who you are…

Theresa May, Prime Minister

“Clean growth is not an option, but a duty we owe to the next generation”, she said in her foreword to the strategy. OK, but does this fulfil the duty?

Claire Perry, Climate Change Minister

Measures in the clean growth strategy “not only continue our work in cutting emissions, but we can also cut consumer bills, drive economic growth, create high-value jobs right across the UK and improve our quality of life. It is a win-win opportunity: it is ours for the taking”, she told Parliament.

She’s probably pretty proud of what she and her officials have delivered in this strategy. And, given the tone and ambition of it, some of that is deserved. She gives every impression of believing passionately that we need to take action to tackle climate change, and that doing so is good for our economy. At WWF, we share that view and are very happy to hear it expressed by UK Ministers.

Her predecessor, Nick Hurd, was similarly passionate. But even he acknowledged yesterday that the strategy was better than when he left the department.

This owes a lot to the politics. The PM’s former adviser, Nick Timothy, questioned the value of the Climate Change Act and argued for reducing support to green measures and delaying climate action. His departure has almost certainly given the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) department more scope for ambition –more power to influence colleagues elsewhere in Whitehall.

Additionally, and much-discussed at the Conservative Party conference, young people didn’t vote Tory at the last election. By a significant margin, they voted Labour. Why does this matter? Because according to the World Economic Forum, climate change is the top issue of concern for ‘millennials’. Polling by Conservative think tank, Bright Blue, bears this out in a British context, with climate change second only to health. Most importantly, young people perceive Conservatives as weak on climate action – despite what they’ve achieved in government.

People working in the industries delivering clean growth

If you work on energy efficiency – helping cut our energy use and make our homes warmer and healthier – you’ll be delighted at the Government’s ambition, if a bit puzzled about how they’ll achieve it. Here at WWF, and via our excellent and committed supporters, we campaigned for an energy efficiency target. We asked the Government to commit that all homes should reach at least energy performance certificate (EPC) level C by 2035. This would cut emissions from homes by a third –equivalent to taking 3 million cars of the road! So, like those investing and creting jobs in the sector, we were very pleased indeed to see this in the strategy.

If you work in offshore wind, you’re already deliriously happy at recent news that turbines being built in five years’ time will generate power at a price lower than new gas generation. And now this strategy offers up another half a billion pounds to buy more offshore wind in an auction in 2019. Buying 10GW or more – and offering the chance for onshore wind on Scottish islands to bid for contracts too – this is a huge boost for an important industry that’s delivering big cost reductions, new high-skilled jobs, and valuable investment in the UK.

If you work in onshore wind, you’ll be disappointed that there’s nothing here for what is already one of the cheapest means of generating power. If you work in solar, as the Solar Trade Association demonstrated, you’re angry about continued lack of support for another very cheap form of power generation. And if you’re hoping to build a tidal power scheme in Swansea Bay, you remain mystified about the Government’s intentions.

Committee on Climate Change

Lord Deben, Chair of the CCC, welcomed the plan, recognising its ambition whilst cautioning that the challenge lies in delivery. However, he went on to warn that Government shouldn’t try and meet carbon budgets by using accounting ‘flexibilities’ in the Climate Change Act – that the clear intention is that budgets should each be met by domestic action to achieve the lowest cost emissions reduction path to 2050.

Why did he say that? Well, because the strategy leaves a possible gap in 2032 between what the fifth carbon budget should deliver, and what it will deliver. To be fair, Government says it can’t yet work out what all of its new plans will deliver in terms of emissions reduction – many still need more work. Just some of the measures, along with existing plans, might currently leave us as much as 9.7% short of the 2032 budget. This would mean that the only way to stay on target would be either to use overshoots from previous budgets, or to trade credits internationally. Neither the CCC nor WWF think this is the right way to do things. To be fair, again, neither do Government – Claire Perry said they hope and plan not to have to do this. But we must keep an eye on that!

WWF

Well, we’re pleased with the ambition, the money for renewables and the homes target. It’s great to hear Government re-affirm commitment to phasing out coal from power generation – although we do need to see the plan for achieving that. There are lots of other things in there that will help and that we welcome the opportunity to get involved in shaping. In the rounds, lots of these are good for energy bill-payers too – more home-grown power and better, more energy-efficient homes will do so much more to cut energy costs in the long-run than a cap on energy prices will.

But we’re worried at the lack of new policies on transport and we still think that a phase-out of diesel and petrol car sales by 2040 is leaving it at least a decade too late. We’re deeply worried about the absence of a plan for dealing with emissions from aviation – not least the increased emissions as a result of building a new runway at Heathrow. And we’re anxious about the lack of detail under some of the ambition and headlines.

Overall – does the Clean Growth Strategy do the job?

Lots to welcome; lots to challenge. There’s still a lot to do – devil in the detail, or in the lack of detail –and we’ll stay obsessed with it. What’s more, we’re going to work harder and harder to get more and more people obsessed with it! It’s never guaranteed that a Government will do absolutely the right thing because all or most people want them to. But it is guaranteed that they probably won’t bother doing things that they think people don’t care about. So we’ll be continuing – and stepping up – our work to help make sure Government knows just how many people care about taking climate action, and just how much.

History teaches us, over and over again, that when we’re faced with big challenges, we need good leaders to help us through them. Challenges don’t come on a much bigger scale for Planet Earth – and every living thing on it – than climate change. So do our leaders have the vision, ambition and stature […]

]]>History teaches us, over and over again, that when we’re faced with big challenges, we need good leaders to help us through them. Challenges don’t come on a much bigger scale for Planet Earth – and every living thing on it – than climate change. So do our leaders have the vision, ambition and stature to see us through? And what does that mean for UK climate policy?
Lionesses leading their cubs in Maasai Mara National Reserve, Kenya.

‘Giants of yesteryear’

For years, I’ve mocked my Dad for repeatedly complaining about political leaders: “where are the giants of yesteryear?” he asks in fury or despair, “the Barbara Castles, Nye Bevans and Roy Jenkinses?” But as I get older, I’ve stopped mocking and started to nod a little morosely.

Facing a public health crisis in the 1960s, Castle legislated for seat-belts in cars, imposed motorway speed limits and introduced the breathalyser. Jenkins gave government backing to private members’ bills to transform the lives of millions, legalising abortion and decriminalising homosexuality; not following, but leading public opinion. And Bevan’s legacy is arguably one of the most radical moments of political leadership. Huge, ambitious and expensive at a time of financial hardship, with opposition from vested interests; done because “no society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means” (Nye Bevan, In Place of Fear, 1952). Musing beyond my Dad’s preferences, you might add Macmillan for his leadership building 300,000 houses a year in the 1950s, or even Heath’s passionate championing of the European project in the 1970s.

Now here we are, in the 21st century, in one of the richest and most liberal countries on the planet. We’re confronted by an existential threat – climate change – for which, like the link between poverty and poor health, we understand both the cause and the solution.

UK climate policy leadership?

The UK government in 2008 led internationally by introducing the Climate Change Act; governments since have stood by it. The coalition government of 2010 was bold in committing £7.6bn of public subsidy, raised through energy bills, to leverage private money for renewable electricity infrastructure. From low single digits in 2010, a third of our electricity will come from renewables by 2020 as a result.

But, just five years on, the next government was elected on a promise to scale this back – to cut support to the cheapest forms of generation, before they can readily be built without public assistance. Despite ratifying the Paris Agreement, UK leadership was replaced by timidity. Timidity in the face of those happy for the countryside to be criss-crossed by power wires between pylons to deliver power to their homes and businesses, but who don’t want wind turbines blotting our green and pleasant land. Timidity in the face of those who would have you believe your energy bills are spiralling upwards to fund these monstrosities. And timidity in the face of big companies with a future hitched to fossil fuels.

Energy bills

We can see this in the coverage of British Gas’ latest price hikes. As inconsistent with their figures as any politician caught on the stump without numbers to hand, British Gas’ parent company, Centrica, blamed the ‘green taxes’ bogey-man. This profitable multinational utility company, whose CEO takes home £4m each year, blamed an increase nearly five times the rate of inflation on something that makes up nine per cent of the average energy bill.

Daily Telegraph, 2nd August, 2017

The Committee on Climate Change has shown that government low-carbon policies – particularly energy efficiency measures – have actually cut energy bills. If these companies were honest about costs, not only would they acknowledge this, but they would pass on the fall in wholesale electricity prices that comes, in part, from the renewables revolution.

So, where were political leaders decrying this nonsense and making the case for this small proportion of our energy bills paying to tackle climate change? Where was former energy Minister Greg Barker’s excellent credo about moving from a ‘Big Six to big sixty thousand’ – premised on British Gas and co no longer being the only games in town? Comparison sites will show you how many providers there are now; as someone who has switched provider twice in recent years, I assure you it’s quick and easy to switch to a cheaper, greener provider.

Driving transport emissions

As with power, so with transport. Not only are greenhouse gas emissions from transport rising, but once again vehicles are driving a public health crisis – one causing 40,000 premature deaths a year, limiting children’s ability to learn, and harming their health. In response, after seven years of crisis, government has given local authorities eight months to see what they can do with £250m, and announced a 2040 ban on sales of petrol and diesel vehicles.

Going solely on media noise and industry cries of pain, you’d conclude this was big, brave, bold leadership. In reality, 23 years is a long time if we want to achieve our Paris goals. It’s also longer than the industry actually needs: take Volvo’s commitment to make all cars electric or hybrid in just two years’ time as Exhibit A.

So actually, this isn’t new and it follows the technology rather than setting technology-leading goals for industry. We lag behind India, Norway and the Netherlands, all with earlier phase-out commitments; bringing UK ambition forward to 2030 would be bold, maximising emissions reductions as well capitalising on jobs and growth opportunities.

Our homes shouldn’t cost the Earth

And finally, UK climate policy needs to be bolder to tackle emissions from our buildings too. Twenty-one million UK homes fall below energy performance certificate (EPC) rating C. Relatively modest improvements to bring them up to that level would cut their emissions by a third – equivalent of taking 10 million cars off the roads.

Tomorrow’s green giants?

We need bold ambition to tackle these three sources of emissions in UK climate policy – specifically the government’s Clean Growth Plan, expected in early September. We must hope that, when it comes to climate change, air pollution and environmental protection, we can one day look back fondly and annoy our kids by lauding the bold leadership of the Claire Perrys, Greg Clarks and Michael Goves of yesteryear.

(A version of this piece was first published by Business Green on 4th August, 2017)

]]>http://blogs.wwf.org.uk/blog/climate-energy/big-tasks-need-big-leaders/feed/0Electric vehicles – which country is leading the charge?http://blogs.wwf.org.uk/blog/climate-energy/electric-vehicles-country-leading-charge/
http://blogs.wwf.org.uk/blog/climate-energy/electric-vehicles-country-leading-charge/#respondMon, 17 Jul 2017 13:57:42 +0000http://blogs.wwf.org.uk/?p=24134

Barely two months into his presidency, French president Emmanuel Macron continues to throw down the gauntlet on tackling climate change. Having banned new oil and gas exploration, his government has now set 2050 as the year by which France will be carbon neutral. This is genuine ambition, announced as 19 world leaders lined up against […]

Petrol & diesel ban

The overall ambition isn’t what made the headlines here. Rather it was the promise to ban sales of petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040. To UK ears, that sounds a big deal. Despite burgeoning air quality problems and greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles rising, the UK government has so far been unable to get to grips with transport emissions, and unwilling to take radical action on vehicle pollution. Ending the internal combustion engine era in just two decades might sound, therefore, quite the leap. But is it actually that challenging?

India has made a similar commitment by 2030—a full decade earlier; the Netherlands and Norway by 2025. France has around 18 times the motor vehicles per capita of India, although India almost certainly has more vehicles than France, in real terms. Netherlands and Norway are much smaller, albeit with similar per capita levels to the French; but with 7 per cent and 29 per cent market share for electric vehicles (including hybrids) respectively, they’re starting from higher bases than France’s 1.5 per cent.

UK commitments

What of the UK? Well, we’ve signed up to an international grouping called the International Zero Emissions Vehicle Alliance (ZEV Alliance), along with Germany (1m electric vehicles (EVs) on its roads by 2020), Norway, the Netherlands and several Canadian and US states—including California & New York. Although that involves only a fairly vague commitment to phasing out non-electric vehicles by 2050, the government has made stronger noises recently.

The UK Industrial Strategy references EVs in relation to smart power grids as well as the role of the Office for Low Emissions Vehicles (OLEV). OLEV is a government body which, among other things, is supporting cities around the UK to test out infrastructure changes to encourage the transition from fossil fuel vehicles.

The Queen’s Speech, otherwise fairly light on non-brexit legislation, included an “automated and electric vehicles bill”. This is to deliver a manifesto promise to “lead the world in electric vehicle technology and use,” ensuring “world-class infrastructure which supports the rapid adoption and use of electric vehicles.” The manifesto repeated the ZEV Alliance commitment for “almost every car and van to be zero-emission by 2050,” and the government has committed £600m this parliament to grow the market for ultra-low emission vehicles. One of the bill measures will require all motorway service stations to install rapid charging—which elicited the following response from Ecotricity founder, Dale Vince, whose company has largely delivered this already…

We need more ambition

At WWF, we don’t think the UK is ambitious enough. BP forecasts that there will be 100m EVs globally by 2035 (against 1.2m in 2015) and Bloomberg project that they’ll account for over half of all new car sales by 2040—becoming cheaper than internal combustion cars in most countries by the middle of the next decade. We’d like 100 per cent of new UK car and van sales to be ultra-low emission by 2030 at the latest. Battery prices are plummeting, air pollution is estimated to claim 40,000 lives a year here, and our transport emissions are rising. And it’s not as if car manufacturers are resisting—as Volvo led the way last week with a commitment that all of their new car sales would be electric or hybrid from 2019!

But, as with France and India, it needs a step-change, not just encouragement; market share now is just 1.4 per cent. The government must target its £600m (and probably more) on incentives for people to switch—including a radical approach to getting diesel vehicles off our roads soonest. It also needs to be imaginative in support for the roll-out of smart charging infrastructure—particularly in towns and cities, where it’s harder to charge vehicles at home. The sooner we do it, the sooner we reap the benefits. That’s not just in terms of cleaner air and tackling climate change, but industrial benefits to our car industry and the jobs it supports—jobs in some of the parts of the UK that could most do with seeing the benefits of growth.

]]>http://blogs.wwf.org.uk/blog/climate-energy/electric-vehicles-country-leading-charge/feed/0How the US and the world are already defying Trump on Parishttp://blogs.wwf.org.uk/blog/climate-energy/how-the-us-and-the-world-are-defying-trump-on-paris/
http://blogs.wwf.org.uk/blog/climate-energy/how-the-us-and-the-world-are-defying-trump-on-paris/#respondFri, 02 Jun 2017 07:12:11 +0000http://blogs.wwf.org.uk/?p=23885

So, despite the efforts of world leaders, despite the case made by his own Secretary of State (a former fossil fuel company boss), his Defence Secretary and, we understand, his own daughter, and despite pleas from US businesses, Donald Trump is withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement. The fightback, however, is already on… Stepping […]

Stepping back from a leadership role on climate change, the US now joins Nicaragua and Syria – the two countries who chose not to sign up to Paris in the first place. This is bad news.

For the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases not to be part of international efforts to tackle climate change – when almost the rest of the planet has committed to try and keep warming to 1.5 degrees – is unconscionable. We should shake our heads, stamp our feet, shout and, obviously, tweet

But what will the impact really be? Can Trump really change the course of history on tackling climate change?

Companies

Huge energy (clean and fossil), food and tech companies have told Trump that the US should remain in the Paris deal– arguing both that it’s the right thing, and the economically sound thing to do. There are more US jobs in solar than coal, and some of the highest densities of investment and jobs in clean energy are in red states like Texas and Oklahoma. So if America backs away from investing in clean energy development to deliver on the Paris Agreement, what happens to those jobs and that investment?

Well, maybe it’s not such bad news for Americans. As the EU and China announce collaboration to fill the vacuum left by the US, are those companies really going to withdraw their investment and leave the way clear for Chinese and European companies to step in and reap the benefits and profits instead? I suspect not. And as it’s those investments that are needed to deliver on what was in Obama’s now-repealed Clean Power Plan, maybe the knock-on implications of Trump’s Paris pull-out are not so bad for the world either.

States and cities

Not just businesses – what of individual US states? Some of these are huge global actors in their own right. California, whose GDP would be in the world’s top ten if it were a nation and New York (which would be in the top 15), are leading the way in the US with ambitions to cut emissions by far more than the US committed to in its soon-to-be-obsolete Paris contribution. If states stick to their plans, as they’ve said they intend to, then is a US withdrawal from Paris such bad news? This is especially so given how many US cities express similar commitments, their mayors joining colleagues from cities all over the world to express global leadership on climate change.

Public support

What’s more, these companies, states and cities are supported by the American people: 70% believe climate change is happening and 53% believe that it’s caused by humans – despite what they’re told by some of their politicians. Two thirds of Americans want their president and congress to do more to tackle it, and 69% of them (including nearly half of Trump voters) believe that staying in the Paris Agreement is part of that.

Climate change is happening and its effects can be seen all over the world. The science is clear about its cause and we know what action we need to tackle it. 197 parties signed up to Paris, committing to that action; 196 will stay signed up – most, no doubt, very happy to work with US citizens, companies, states and cities to deliver on it.

Every new year, when I tell myself that I’m going to lose weight, drink less, or (this year) eat less meat, I know that it won’t happen on the basis of willpower alone. If I set rules – tell myself how I’m going to do it – then I’m much more likely actually to achieve […]

]]>Every new year, when I tell myself that I’m going to lose weight, drink less, or (this year) eat less meat, I know that it won’t happen on the basis of willpower alone. If I set rules – tell myself how I’m going to do it – then I’m much more likely actually to achieve something: so-many dry days or meat-free meals a week. If I don’t, it remains little more than a fond hope and best intentions.

This is also true of the UK government’s climate targets. The Climate Change Act is amongst the strongest climate change legislation in the world – and it’s hugely encouraging, as some of the noise from climate-change deniers grows more confident, that this government has signed up to the fifth carbon budget and ratified the Paris Agreement. It signals the best intentions, and comes on the back of significant achievements in deploying renewables (25% of electricity generation) and cutting emissions (down more than a third on 1990).

Missing targets

But the problem with those intentions is that we’re not actually on track to hit our carbon targets beyond the end of this decade – indeed, we might be as much as 25% adrift by 2025. The emissions reduction plan ought to be about how we meet the fifth carbon budget – running from 2028 to 2032. But if we’re that far out on the one before it, then we’re going to be way off by then. So, like the promises I make to myself at the start of the year, I fear for our intentions in the absence of a plan.

Unlike my new year’s resolutions, of course, the government’s commitments under the UK Climate Change Act are legal obligations (I’ve never yet secured a slot for primary legislation for my lifestyle improvements), and have rather more far-reaching implications. This is why we’re getting very anxious as we wait for the government’s emissions reduction plan. We expected it last year, but obviously brexit is consuming a lot of civil service and Ministerial capacity. We then expected it by the end of March, but still nothing. And we’re not the only ones; the plan is just as crucial to businesses in the UK’s growing low carbon sector; they want to know how the government will support them as they conquer the energy mainstream and drive down costs.

But let’s be fair, it’s a complex undertaking – not least the process for government officials in lining up agreement from their colleagues in other departments. The reason we’re worried about it is also, I guess, the reason why it’s taking so long: there really are some huge gaps to be bridged.

Cutting energy and costs in homes

Terrace houses, Shutterstock

First, we’re making no progress reducing emissions from buildings. Energy efficiency (things like insulating our lofts and walls) offer some of the cheapest and quickest emissions reductions, yet four out of five homes are below the recommended level of efficiency (EPC C) that would deliver on climate targets, keep us warm, and cut our bills. We need the UK Government to up its game and help create a market for energy improvements, using incentives and standards. As for new buildings – making them efficient and low carbon is a no-brainer; yet still we’re building homes that mean future generations will need to have the exact same conversation we’re having now about retrofitting to improve efficiency. But to make a real change, we have to invest as well in low carbon heating – electric heat pumps for homes currently using oil, and district heating in urban areas. This isn’t easy, not least because it involves local authorities as well as national government leadership and investment – but it is crucial.

Cleaner power

Next, the electricity sector: for all the phenomenal deployment of renewables, and the commitment to phase out coal by 2025, the job is far from done. Decarbonisation will grind to a halt and stagger over a cliff without clear continued commitment to new clean generation. Alongside the commitment to offshore wind, the UK government still needs to give clarity for investors in other, cheaper, technologies like solar and onshore wind as to whether will provide a way for them to sell their power to the market, and what support there will be for smaller-scale renewables. But it also means clear commitment to robust carbon pricing, which the flagging EU emissions trading system is still failing to deliver. Post-brexit, the UK could potentially lead the way in the UK with a new and stronger carbon market – and underpin it with a decarbonisation target for the electricity sector. Getting all of this right, and continuing to decarbonise power, will be essential if we’re to tap the benefits of cleaner and more efficient electric transport and heating.

Planes, trains and automobiles

And thirdly, transport, where emissions are actually going up! The commitment in the industrial strategy to accelerating the development of electric vehicles is welcome. But the UK government still has a significant job to do to if we’re to phase out conventional crop biofuels, replacing them instead with sustainable waste-based fuels for aviation, shipping and freight. So, knowing that emissions are already going the wrong way, and then announcing a commitment to build a third runway at Heathrow… This drives the proverbial coach and horses – flies an Airbus A380 – through the fifth carbon budget. Expansion in aviation emissions only makes targets harder to reach, and puts more pressure on the other sectors to decarbonise.

All of which is why we’re anxious to see and to influence an ambitious and clear emissions reduction plan. As the millions who took part in WWF’s Earth Hour on 25 March showed, people want action on climate change: two thirds of the public are clear that climate change is happening and is caused by humans; 80% and 73% respectively worry about harm to wildlife and increased flooding as a result.

We need a plan for tackling those problems – a plan for reducing emissions – and we need it now. This is urgent.

Well it’s been a pretty significant few weeks. Nine months after the vote on EU membership, the war of words is over and the formal exit proceedings have started. It’s quite the moment for reflection, when you realise just how many of us were born into Britain the European Union member state – or were […]

]]>Well it’s been a pretty significant few weeks. Nine months after the vote on EU membership, the war of words is over and the formal exit proceedings have started. It’s quite the moment for reflection, when you realise just how many of us were born into Britain the European Union member state – or were too young in 1973 to remember what came before.

But actually, what’s much more important now is the job ahead of us – to focus on what we need to keep and what we must worry about losing as we leave the EU. The past fortnight gave us our first proper clues as to what next – with the PM’s letter to Donald Tusk and the white paper on the legislation to repeal EU law and transpose the ‘acquis communautaire’ onto the UK statute books.

Encouraging signs include the line in the white paper that: “the government is committed to ensuring that we become the first generation to leave the environment in a better state than we found it”.

Impacts on wildlife

Recent polling suggested that when it comes to climate change, 80 per cent of British people worry about the impacts on our nature and wildlife above all else. They’re right to: the 2016 State of Nature report showed that over half of our species are in decline, with a tenth of them at risk of disappearing from the UK altogether.

Over the years that we’ve been a member of the EU, we’ve implemented far-reaching protections to slow that decline and manage and reduce risks to wildlife and nature. We’ve done that with our European partners, as a part of the EU – these standards aren’t imposed on us; they reflect that huge public concern for protection of wildlife in the UK. So all of the hard work that led to protections for species, their habitats and protected areas of nature – both on and around our shores – has to be a huge priority for us in terms of bringing EU rules into UK law.

It’s not all risk, though. There are opportunities for us from Brexit.

It’s hard to believe that anyone would set out to design the common agricultural policy (CAP) as it is now – paying some farmers to maintain bare, over-farmed, un-wooded land that provides no sort of home for nature, diminishes UK carbon sinks, and fails to build natural flood defences. Well, if we’re really taking back control, then the opportunity to re-cast support for farmers as something that can make a huge contribution to that commitment to future generations is one we should seize.

Climate and energy

On the climate and energy side of things, there seems less risk to our efforts in the UK. We have, as we know, world-leading climate legislation in our 2008 Climate Change Act. Neither that law nor the carbon budgets that guide us to 80 per cent emissions reductions by 2050 rely on the EU. Our commitment to the Paris Agreement – taking us beyond our existing emissions target – is also not bound up in EU membership.

Yes, the renewable energy directive has helped galvanise deployment of clean electricity, but so too have the huge economic benefits, and the imperatives of those carbon budgets; there’s no good reason why this should drop off without Europe’s oversight. Similarly, we’re part of the EU emissions trading system (EU ETS). But, like CAP, it’s not doing what we need it to – huge oversupply of credits is keeping carbon prices unhelpfully low. We could now begin to imagine a situation where we might, like CAP, design a better system for the UK – enhance our climate action by re-casting these mechanisms to do better than the existing ones.

There are also valuable statutory benchmarks that we’ve established alongside our EU partners over the years – energy efficiency standards for appliances, emissions standards for vehicles, and for industrial emissions standards. Sticking to these when we leave not only supports tackling climate change and cutting air pollution, but also ensures that products built here in the UK still have access to that huge market that we are exiting. In much the same way, access for the burgeoning UK clean energy sector to the European energy market will be critical for jobs and investment here, as well as for further emissions reductions – crucial to helping continue to separate carbon growth from economic growth.

Policing the nonsense

Much of the work is there, done for us. We just need to be careful about how we transpose it into UK law. What we need to police, though, is the counter-narrative. That familiar handful of voices – marshalled into action last week by The Telegraph – who imply Brexit is all about rejecting straight bananas: that Europe is solely a story of rules forced onto us which stifle British business and the entrepreneurial spirit. This is such utter nonsense that it makes me sad all over again that we’re still having to argue against it! The idea that our carpets would be cleaner and our toast browner if only it wasn’t for those soulless Eurocrats making us dim our lightbulbs and throttle our business-folk with red tape. The notion that if we could only kill more insects, birds and mammals, we’d have enough homes and more factories.

Leaving aside the truly daft examples, their beefs almost all ignore the difference between costs and investments. We invest in people in organisations because they deliver those organisations’ purpose; they’re not a cost because they get paid. Investment in replacing all of our lightbulbs with LED ones would save us the cost of the electricity that would be generated by two and a half Hinckley Point C nuclear power stations. We invest in protecting our wildlife because of the profound cost – emotional, economic, and in terms of natural capital benefits – associated with its loss.

So that’s the job ahead: rebut the nonsense; seize the opportunities; police what gets brought over. That should keep us all very busy. And so keep me fired up rather than reflective.